A Million to Spend
by LesserWraith
Summary: Hector and Stanley arrive home after their adventures, and get into a few less torturous ones because of their treasure. Rated T for some teenage themes. No slash!


"You'd think that my flat was a bit bigger than this," Stanley muttered, following his mother as they lead the way into the room.

"Better than an orphanage," I replied, holding one side of the huge treasure chest. "Or a torture camp."

Stanley laughed, weighing the other side. "Yeah."

"It's kind of late, and there isn't a lot of food," she said. "I'm afraid we'll have to wait for morning- _Stan!_"

To my surprise, Stanley didn't do anything. Well, except stare at the food-laden table in the kitchen, as if he hasn't ever seen food before in his life.

"That's what my mom calls my dad," he explained. "It's used to distinguish between the two of us. She still likes to mess up a bit, though."

"Well, it looks like you _are_ late for dinner," Stanley's father, who was sitting on the table, said. "But don't worry. The foot odor got me a lot of offers, and one of them took me for a dinner."

"Stan!" Stanley's mother exclaimed again. Then quickly turned around and calmed down. "In that case, we're having dinner together."

"Awesome!" Stanley said. "I'll just open this chest away first-"

"We'll open it in the morning," she said. "C'mon, even mothers get hungry too."

Not long after Stanley introduced me to his room (which is comprised of a bed, a set of boxes with clothes, and no air conditioning), we all settled down and had dinner. It wasn't all as awkward as I suspected, because Stanley did most of the talking, while I just tried to not take too much.

"Where's your home?" Stanley's mother asked me after a few minutes. "Stanley- um, Stan- um, nevermind, _I_ could drive you there. Your mother must be worried sick."

"I don't have a home, and I haven't seen my mother in a decade," was all I said.

An awkward silence passed us as Stanley's mother looked at me in a 'you're not serious' way. Except I was serious, so it was more of a 'you're serious but I can't believe it' way of look.

"It's no problem," I added. "I'll be off-"

"Over my rattlesnake bitten body," Stanley said. "You're staying here."

"Okay, what?" I said, giving him the same look on Stanley's mother's face.

"C'mon, just for the night," Stanley said. "We can figure out something from then on."

"Sounds like a good plan," his father said. "There are poisonous snakes outside at night."

We all stared at him.

"What?" he asked, raising his hands. "I was just trying to be funny!"

"In that case, you can sleep in Stanley's room," Stanley's mom cut in. "Though we'll have to go buy more food tomorrow… I doubt there's any left in the fridge."

"Oh- about that, honey," Stanley's father said quickly. "I…"

"You what now, dear?" she said, her tone hardening.

"Let's get out of here," Stanley whispered, getting up from the chair quickly. I followed suit.

As we left the kitchen, I heard his father said something about 'filling the whole fridge with foot odor' or something.

"Were you serious about sleeping here for the night?" I asked, surveying the room interestedly.

"Yeah," he said bitterly. "The thing is, though, even with that massive chest lying here, we still don't have a lot of money to buy food and stuff. So..."

"I know, I know," I said. "I'd be draining your food supply."

"Yeah," he said. "Sorry."

"I went half a week without food, remember?"

"If only we brought those onions back," he muttered. We both laughed.

"Let's study a bit," I suggested. "You're like, a week late on teaching me."

"I'm sorry I was busy looking for you," he joked. "Anyway, time for learning what I hardly know at all."

"You know more than me," I muttered.

We eventually ended up sitting down, cramped up on a single chair, a lamp, and a piece of paper and a pen laid in front of us.

"Come on," I said, "Give me a hard word."

"Estimate."

"Estimate." attempting to spell the word. Long words are a challenge for me, and I like challenges. "Estimating. E - S - S-"

"Nope," Stanley laughed. "Try again."

"E - S - T - E - E-"

"Still not right."

"Um..." I muttered, crossing out the two E's in my mind. "E - S - T - I? Is this right?"

"Go on," Stanley said with a grin. "You're getting there."

"E - S - T - I - M - A - Y"

"Nope."

I got rid of the incorrect letters, A and Y. I mean, M has /got to be right. Right?

"E - S - T - I - M - A … um… A?"

"Still not right," he said.

"E - S - T - M - A - I- right? I can be read as ee, right?"

"Wait a sec," Stanley said, reaching for his cell and pretending to answer his phone. "The publisher of the Lexical Dictionary would like to have a word with you, Zero. He's wondering why someone so bright in Maths can be so slow when it comes to language."

"Tell him that his had a proper education hasn't given him the opportunity to find himself a proper, computing brain," I shot back at him. Despite all friendships we might have had, I do /not like being looked down upon. I know Stanley was trying to be funny (he succeeded), and I want to feel funny too, but Camp Green Lake doesn't have a lot of opportunities to be joking and fun. It was mostly ash and dirt. And then there was literature from Stanley and then heroism from both of us.

"Oh. Sorry," he said.

"Anyway," I said, quickly trying to move on, "E - S - T - M - A - E-"

"That's not it," Stanley muttered, writing the word down on the paper in front of us. I forgot whose idea it was, to study at _night,_ in _Stanley's_ room, in his dingy flat, _without_ air conditioning.

"You got the first part right," he explained, writing down the letter A. Now here comes a part of English that everyone hates. It's called the long sounds. I think."

"Long sounds?" I asked, tilting my head in wonder. "Like aaaaaaaaaaaaa-"

"Shh! My parents let us study at night, not open a concert."

"More like we're scaring off burglars with my wonderful sound projections," I muttered.

Stanley laughed.

"Anyway, you know how to write May, right?"

"Um, maybe not?" I said sarcastically. "You sort of taught me that before."

"I have?"

He raised his eyes questioningly.

"Mary. The one I pronounced Mar ee yuh. The weird y thing."

"Um," he rubbed his head. "Nope. It's May. Mm ay."

"Oh. Go on," I said.

"When there's a y at the end of a vowel, the sound before it likes to drag out," he explained. "Like Toy."

"Tuh - oh - ee," I said. "T - O - I? I think the /I sound is pronounced as I."

"That's why the vowel is dragged out," he said. "The y sound does that for you."

Vowels, I thought in my head. U. aa - eh - ee - oh - uu. Tuh - oh - ee. The word has a Y at the end, which drags the sound instead, so...

I thought for a while. "T - O - Y?"

"You got it," he smiled.

"See?" I grinned. "I'm fast at this."

"And in a world record of nearly four minutes."

"Still not bad," I said, thinking hard. "May, mm - eh - ee. M - A - Y?"

"Yep," he said.

"So, Estimate… E - S - T - I - M - A - T… E?"

"Perfect," he said with a smile.

I grinned.

"Stanley," I said. "Ss - tuh - an - lee. S - T - A - N - L - E … um… dragged sound… no, it's only a longer version. E?"

"It's _written_ as a dragged sound," Stanley laughed. "S - T - A - N - L - E - Y."

"Stanlei?" I asked, scratching my head confusedly. "E - Y is eh - ee, right?"

"See, I told you it's written like that," he said. "In real life, it's read as Stanley. ee."

"Seriously?!" I said, frowning at him. I whipped the cell phone from the desk and pretended to make a call. Even though I had no idea how it worked. At all.

"Lexical Dictionary Publisher? Change Stanley's spelling immediately. It's been pronounced wrongly all these years. You have to change it to S - T - A - N - L - E - E. You hear me?"

"I doubt it," he laughed, grabbing the phone back from me. "But now that I think of it, it _should_ be changed."

"What should be changed?" I asked.

"Your shirt," he said sarcastically. "You sort of smell."

"S - M - E - L," I said.

"The 'l' sound is elongated, so-"

"Oh! I know," I said. "S - M - E - L - L?"

"Spot on," he said.

I lifted my arms, sniffing them slightly. I _did_ sort of smell. But not because of my shirt.

"Stupid!" I cursed. Well, I wasn't cursing my smell. I was cursing the fact that I had _hair_ growing out of my armpit. It's not even like, long yet, it's just started to grow. Which I find freakishly scary. If I woke up one day and it was there are _normal,_ I wouldn't mind. But this is like, _growing_ hair.

But, stuff like this wasn't stuff that could be put into proper conversation without being totally awkward, so I didn't say anything about it. Well, _I_ didn't. Someone did.

"I'm not even at that point yet," Stanley says, lifting his own arms. "I guess you'll be having girls throwing themselves at you now-"

"What?!" I got out of the chair, crossed the room backwards in two long strides (which was the size of his room), and glared at him, trying to hide the very obvious burning sensation on my cheeks. "W- what has _this_ got to do with spelling?!"

"Spell 'Hot Girls'."

"I will not," I said defiantly. H - o - T G - I - R - L - S. "I don't even /know any, um, nice looking girls!"

"Does this mean you're gay?" he asked, pretending to be shocked a fall off his chair.

I rolled my eyes, but Stanley continued his acts of dying. If you count fake self choking to be an act of death.

"No! Go away from me! I'm not interested in boys… I'm… noooo!" he said all very loudly, pretending to fend off a bunch of kisses from some nonexistent gay form of me.

A silence follows as he burst out laughing, clutching his stomach as he lay on the floor.

"And I thought _I_ was loud," I muttered.

"Just kidding," Stanley said, smiling apologetically. "Not that I'd have anything against you if you /were one."

"Maybe I _should_ find girls that will throw themselves at me already," I muttered. "Just to show you how your ingrown body is incapable of finding one."

His face flushed at these words.

"Hey! I used to have a girlfriend back at school!" he protested. "Sort of."

"Yeah, but I'll be getting _all_ the girls with this hot bod of mine," I joked. "And with my newfound body odor, no girl shall resist my power-"

The door opened, and Stanley's mum's head poked in through the opening.

"Stanley, Hector, that's enough," she said with a disapproving look. "You're going to wake up the whole apartment this way."

"Sorry, mum," he said uneasily. "I was the one too loud."

"That's not exactly true," I muttered, my tone indifferent. "I was sort of loud too."

"Look, I'm not going to be one of those rich mothers and say 'Don't bring in your street ways of life here', because if anything, your manners are way better than my son's," she said with a smile. "Maybe I should send Stanley to the streets tonight."

"Mom!" Stanley got up with an aghast look. I grinned. "We just got back from that hell! Are you trying to make me go through even more?"

"Well, don't give me more of that ear-splitting laughter, then," she said with a frown. "Or I will send _you_ to the streets tonight. And then Hector can stay in your bed."

"Fine," Stanley muttered. "Sorry."

"Alright, then, it's time that you two have gone to bed, too," she said. "Take a bath, you two."

"Yes, mom," he said. I simply nodded. She headed out of the room, only to come back in seconds later.

"Oh, and, ugh, what's that smell?" she said, fanning her face with her hand. "You two better wash up soon. How you boys manage to stay in such smells…"

Her voice drifts off as she exits the room, the sound of her bedroom door clacking shut behind her.

Stanley grinned at me.

"Seems like someone really _couldn't_ resist that smell," he said.

"Don't even let me get started on my abs," I said, pretending to flew my muscles. "Nah, it's all good."

"Whatever." He grabbed a towel from the wardrobe (or, more like, the mass of clothes stacked in various boxes). "I'm washing first."

"See if you can man up in there," I joked as he left.

I looked around the room. It was a quiet, small room, but it was quite cozy. There were blankets and pillows everywhere, and even a small stuffed bear that I'm pretty sure Stanley wasn't supposed to let me see. I walked to the window, a small, curtainless opening to the outside world, and stared out of it.

Stanley came back into the room, wearing almost exactly the same wear as he did before he went into the shower. I would have thought that he didn't change if it wasn't for his used clothes in his hands.

"I'm done," he declared. "Come on, go man up."

"Whatever..." I began. "Um? Stanley?"

"Mm?"

"I don't have… uh, clothes to change," I said embarrassedly.

"Here," he said, tossing a bunch of clothes from the 'wardrobe' at me. "Use these."

I looked at the clothes that were in my hands uneasily.

"And how am I supposed to… um, repay you?" I asked. To be honest, I really thought I had a debt to him. I had nothing, and he had a lot of stuff, and he let me use his stuff, which is not only an invasion of privacy, but also an act of kindness that I've found hard to justify.

"No need," he grinned. "And never."

"Um… are you sure you're not gay yourself?" I joked. "Just kidding. Thanks."

"Yeaaah," he said. "As if I'd ask for anything of you after you landed me into a pile of gold."

"Yeah, but I'll be getting the girls too," I said. "So that's sort of unfair."

"Totally," he agreed. "But that's romancey stuff. Not related to clothes."

"Alright," I grinned. "Thanks again."

"Whatever," he said, shutting the door as I left.

As I took a bath, which is the best place in the world to be thinking of the world and the petty things that revolve around it, I think: Why do people give their things away so easily? And yet, when the things are taken away from them, why do they shout in anger?

I'm been a thief my whole life. No one's ever given me anything. I've always had to fight for what I had. That or steal. And freaking _Stanley_ gives stuff away like he's a millionare!

Oh, wait. He sort of is now. But nevermind that.

And then I remembered the onions he gave me. And the water. And the freedom too. He fought for /that. He wouldn't let me get stuck there at all. It was like he wasn't going to leave, and this sounds creepy, without me. And he did it for /me. /Me, again!

And I recalled the laughs, the jokes he'd insert, and the fun we had even in though we were living a nightmare. Have I ever had a friend before him? Nah. I never trusted anyone after my mother left me. Or forgot me, which would be worse. And yet, I felt guilty that I stole that celebrity's shoes.

I certainly thought about them all the time, especially when Stanley arrived. Why doesn't he care?

He certainly didn't care that I took a jab at him. He even let it slide and play along. He gave me those clothes without a second thought.

Just like how I dug that hole for him, without a second thought. At some points I wasn't even digging so I could learn how to read and write. I dug because I wanted to do something for him as an apology. So he would be spared of the crimes he never committed.

I never thought of them.

Just like how I never cared when I took those jabs at him. I laughed along with him.

And I think: When you do something for a friend, you don't think of it.

That's it!

And you certainly don't think of it all that seriously when someone does something for you, either. And you certainly don't tell them. If you did, it would get awkward. It's the gratitude that you feel towards them that counts, not the repaying that you will do for them without even thinking.

And that's friendship, in a nutshell: caring for each other without a second thought.

Because, subconsciously, you know that they care too.

Man, I am a freaking genius! Ha-hah! Stanley will be blown away with my revelation.

Or, even better, he doesn't need to. Why show him something so obvious?

I left the bathroom with my newfound knowledge, and as I entered the room, I was shocked to see Stanley sitting on the table, and not at all asleep.

"Aren't you supposed to be in bed?"

"I was… uh… thinking," he said.

"That's new," I said with a laugh.

"Um, actually, I wanted you to thank you for, like, being my friend."

I paused for a moment, before breaking into a wide smile.

"I know. Why were you thinking of it? Friends don't usually do that, right?"

"Yeah," he said. "Except I never had a friend before, so doing all these stuff so carelessly is kind of new."

"It is."

"It is."

"..."

"..."

Yep, no wonder why care and friendships are subconscious things. If it was spoken, it would be awkward.

"You sure you don't see me more than that? My hot bod might attract males as well," I joked, flexing my arms.

"I'd pass."

"Dude, if girls aren't going to dig you, you've gotta have some sort of alternative, you know."

"With a million dollars, they would," he muttered. "Well, half for you, so that would be five- um..."

"What?!"

I spun around, looking at him in disbelief.

"That's what my mum said," he shrugged. "She said that you deserved half of whatever was in there."

"No," I said. "No."

"This is your house now," he said, raising his eyebrows. "So it's technically your property as well."

"No. It's technically your money. It even has your name written on it. S - T - A - N - L - E - Y. Not Z - E - R - O."

"Yeah, it's mine," he agreed.

"See?" I asked, heaving a sigh of relief.

"That's why I'm giving half of it to you."

"Are you- what- no!" I spluttered, backing myself away from this insane person. "No way!"

"Think of it as half of the share. You certainly earned it."

"I had my share," I muttered. "But I'm not taking the money. Never."

"Imagine how many hot fudge sundaes you could buy with that," Stanley grinned.

"Are you crazy? Here-" I grabbed the cellphone. "Mr. Pendanski? Can you send this boy back to Green Camp Lake for mental rehabilitation?"

"Hey, my mom thought it was the best idea too," Stanley shrugged. "Besides, even if you didn't accept it, I'd spend that money on things for you anyway. It's yours, even if you deny it."

Which, according to my mind, is true. Things that are given always belong to the receiver, regardless of their attitude. I learned that from the countless holes I've dug.

"You'd _what?_" I asked, an incredulous look on my face. "Are you sure you don't need a whack to the head or something?"

"Think of the things that I'd buy for you if you didn't spend it yourself," he said mischievously. "A lifelong supply of onions. A bikini."

"Those aren't all that related," I muttered.

"Better you decide what you spend that money than have someone else decide for you," Stanley said sleepily. "You might wake up to find ten bottles of Sploosh stacked in front of you."

"I'd tell your mom that it's Stanley's," I muttered.

"Then… let's see… oh. Imagine if I bought you… a shovel. Like, loads of them."

I glared at him.

"You would not do that."

"If it's my money, then I get to buy what I want," he said with a grin.

I stared at him for the longest time ever. I could swear that the moon actually moved through the sky.

"Fine," I said. "I'll take that money. Just so you won't spend it on stupid stuff."

"Yeah, and don't buy anything for me," he said. "I certainly won't buy anything for you, you millionare."

I grinned.

"Sure thing."

"Go to bed," I said with a yawn. "I'm sleeping on the floor."

"Are you mad?!" he looked at me like I really was. "You've been homeless half your life, and you think I'm going to let you sleep on the floor?"

"Not fond of pillows," I lied.

"Yeah, right. The next thing you know, you're going back to Green Camp lake because you like the lizards."

"I'm not taking the bed," I said flatly. "Are you crazy? It's /yours."

"It's my parents', technically," he said. "And besides-"

"If you persist in making me sleep there like a luxurious king, I will sleep in the kitchen where I can also find myself a sandwich-"

"Fine, fine," he grumbled. "But I'm not sleeping on the bed."

"And I thought _I_ was the homeless one," I mumbled.

"Not anymore," he said, giving me a grin.

I looked at him in confusion.

"You seriously thought that you were going back to that orphanage, right?" he asked, grabbing a sheet and settling down- on the floor next to the bed.

"Um," I began. I knew Stanley wouldn't have let me, but I guess I did think that I was going to be stuck in Green Camp Lake after Stanley found the treasure. "Sort of?"

"Orphanage girls aren't fit for a king like you," he grinned. "You need /class."

"I need you to shut up," I muttered. "Go to sleep."

"Still," he said, looking up at me. "This is your home now."

"Yeah. Thanks."

"Though the orphanage still welcomes you."

"Night."

As he rolled to his side, mumbled something about his back, and closed his eyes, I went over to the window and looked out of it.

I thought of the money that was stored under the bed right now, nearly a million dollars each, and what they could bring to us.

It's not often that someone gets a million dollars, for whatever reason. Be it a lottery, which requires immense luck, and with all the lotteries you've spent hoping for that million, you're probably at a loss anyway. No. A million dollars requires skill and often immorality to obtain. It also requires perseverance, courage, and the acceptance of risk and consequences. and yes, you need luck at well. You could work hard for a million years, but still never get a million dollars, without a little bit of luck.

I think I've fulfilled my share of courage and acceptances of risk. Stanley fulfilled the luck part by digging up a treasure that neither of us really saw coming at all. Of course, he was brave as well. But I was the fearless one! I just happened to get carried up a mountain by him once. But I was brave, and that counts!

Of course, Stanley would say that he also taught me how to read and write, but let's get that out of the way for now. Back to the million dollars thing, which, I have to admit, it was /both of our bravery and luck (the former still mostly mine, don't forget that) that got us sitting on piles and piles of gold.

Even the richest of businessmen had to worm their way up from scratch to get what they needed. There's a saying, really, that the first million is always the hardest.

I don't believe in that. The first million isn't always the hardest; it's /how you spend the first million that's the hardest.

And I believed, that in the morning, we would make the choices of how we would spend that money.

"Stanley?" I asked, watching him roll on the ground next to the bed.

"Mmyeah?" he mumbled.

"What do you think you'd spend all that money on?"

"A hot fudge sundae."

I laughed, grabbed his blanket from his bed, and lay down on the ground on other side of the bed, where I lie there, smiling as I think of my own cleverness.

Before I drifted asleep, I swore I heard a mumble from the other side of the room:

"Stubborn boy."


End file.
